


of haunted nurseries

by orphan_account



Category: Baby Doll (1956)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:58:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23334340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: of course it wasn't just sleep
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	of haunted nurseries

**Author's Note:**

> if you haven't seen the film, it won't make much sense. 
> 
> If you have, it takes place in the Obvious Gap.

A _haunted _house, everyone says. 

He believes in a house that can be haunted, same as he believes in Presidents and a sun-baked island in the Med and the soft brown scapular stuffed in his left hip pocket- good stories to have around, even if they aren't true. Better than taking the chance that they're wrong. 

Anyhow, this place is just antiquated enough, dilapidated, harum-scarum pathetic and worthy of Archie Lee. He thinks of the trim Quonset hut waiting for him back by the river, small and fussily tidy and equipped with a glorious air conditioner that's just waiting to start up its ecstatic cooling buzz. 

That'd been something he'd promised himself as a kid, back in Texas. If the movies could do it big, all those screens and all those people, he could figure out how to do it small- and he'd done it, too. Engineering had given his restless mind and stubborn streak a focus, a respect for logic and clear-cut thinking. 

So his training keeps his superstitions in check, and the superstitions stop him getting caught thinking there's nothing in life but blueprints- and steering between them has kept his course nice and smooth. Up until yesterday, anyway. 

And now it's today and he's disgraced an arsonist and made a jug of lemonade that's still blistering his throat and ruthlessly played on a woman's own heartfelt superstitions to get the slip of paper that'll mean justice for him, which isn't at all bad for a few hours work. There's not a damned reason to stay in the house a moment longer- fact is, the longer he stays the sooner it'll be for Archie Lee to come back and try to get that paper off him by any means necessary. 

(Fire again, maybe?)

So he ought to leave. 

Instead of which, he's curled up in a deconstructed crib of all places, feeling his heart juddering down to neutral and listening to a nineteen-year old singing "Home on the Range".

(You can fudge a superstition, like you can engineering, but only up to a point. At the end of the day the light switch either works or it doesn't; and he's either a man or he isn't, and if all Baby Doll wants back for her glimpse of eternity is a singsong, well, he's worked many a worse job than this.)

"Where the graceful white swan goes gliding along, like a maid-" she giggles, almost hiccups- "in a heavenly dream."

Prettier voices back in town, some of them prettier maids too, but they're all jealous of each other, of him, he has to mark down dances in a notebook like so many notations. There's what attracted her husband, maybe- she doesn't seem to notice what she doesn't care to, sets her eyes on a swing or a pig or the vast horizon just to say it tain't on you. Teasing that attention in your direction, well-

(like that theatre he heard about, two spotlights all it took to raise a conflation the size of-) 

must be something like that. He can't figure why the hell else Archie Lee wouldn't have settled for a spinster with a double chin and a dowry. 

Somewhere in there, she's started up a new tune, one he doesn't know. He's conscious of moments slipping past, valuable time, and along with them the pose that's brought him this far- quick wit, self-possession, those aren't qualities he can afford to be without. 

Sense says he's tuckered out, tired enough to be making mistakes now, and bumps off without a single useful suggestion. Superstition says that he's in plenty kinds of danger- they could lynch a man for less in this town, they probably have. All it'll take is one little lady's whisper on the telephone and he'll be scorched and crackling like his gin- 

"Would you like to know why I think Tiger Tail is haunted?

Times when it's best not to say anything, if the alternative would be too much. He raises his head a little from the clumsily-stuffed pillow, narrows his gaze. 

Seems to please her. She leans forward, near enough to stroke his hair if she fancied. 

"The old lady who used to live here- she looks after the place still, you know. That's why Archie Lee doesn't dare move her things on the lawn, that's the real reason he knows not to touch me. She won't let me come to harm in here, whatever else happens."

Words don't come so easily as breath, a sleepy gasp for air that shouldn't take so much effort as it does. He's conscious suddenly of the November wind pouring through cracks and crannies and poorly fit windows, seasonal perhaps but ill-favoured.

"I reckon," she murmurs, teasing one stray curl around the tip of her forefinger (nothing remarkable there, if the curl didn't happen to be his own)- "I reckon that if I asked her nicely, you wouldn't ever see Corpus Christi again." 

"Supposing I don't want to."

Which is only the truth, after all. He's not some Yankee carpetbagger to stay two months and flee before summer; he has title on that riverside patch of land, free and clear, and means to make the place his own.

He tells her that cherished blueprint, through half-closed eyes and the occasional shiver, and she looks at everything but him and digs up a blanket to keep him warm. Nothing happens between them- not a single warm touch, not so much as a clasp of hands. 

(Everything happens.)


End file.
